New Sign

I kept very busy over the holiday break at the farm (more on that later). One of the things that I did was to put up a new sign. I had it made from cast aluminum and it is powder coated so it should last for pretty close to forever. Longer than me, anyhow.

The sign pays tribute to the previous owner of the farm, Gary Larson. He did such impressive work around the property and you could tell he was always looking for little ways to improve it. We felt it was appropriate to make sure that his legacy lived on at this place and so his name is on there. I did make one stupid mistake though; he actually established the place in 1990, not 1997, although I unfortunately did not notice this error (my fault) until after the sign had been cast. It’s nearly impossible to fix at this point and I suppose it another forty years those few seven years won’t matter too much anyhow. Originally Gary called the place “Daybreak Ranch.” He told me that at the time him and his wife were both working and had to get up early to take care of the horses, at the crack of dawn. In addition, the main home faces east and so “Daybreak”, with its double meaning, became the name. The “ranch” part is presumably because of the horses. Since we don’t have horses and I don’t plan to get any, we decided to change that part to “farm” instead. So “Daybreak Farm” is the name; it has a bit of heritage to it and it’s also our own.

The sign itself is really heavy. Even though it’s aluminum, it’s a lot of it. It weighs just over 100 pounds. It has eight studs in the back of it that I connected into 2x6s which are in turn lag-bolted into the upright beams; one is a burly old 6×6 and the other is two 2x4s joined in an L shape. I suspect I may end up strengthening those 2x4s by adding a 4×4 behind them at some point although they’re working fine for now. All of the wood is covered in an oil-based sealer / stain which should help it survive in our soggy weather. Above it I mounted two solar powered lights for nighttime illumination.

Here is what the new sign looks like, mounted in place:

I had to cut down a nasty looking holly bush that was in my way when I was hanging it. It’s a little hard to get a sense of scale from this picture; the sign is about six feet wide and a little over two feet tall if I recall correctly.

Below is the original sign that we replaced. I think I’ll put this one up in the barn. You can see the big gnarly holly bush in this photo.